A CIO Blog with a twist; majority of my peer CIOs talk about the challenges they face with vendors, internal customers, Business folks and when things get through the airwaves, the typical response is "Oh I See". Some of you may disagree with my meanderings and that's okay. It's largely experiential and sometimes a lot of questions

Updated every Monday. Views are personal

Monday, April 24, 2017

Surviving in an Enterprise in a leadership role without doing anything

Most of us have read the 3
envelope parable on corporate challenges and careers; for those who have not,
an abridged version. A newbie leader is given 3 envelopes by the outgoing
incumbent to be opened only in cases of dire trouble. He opens the first one when
challenged in a management meeting and confronts the wisdom: Blame predecessor ! A year passes when
again he is in trouble; the second envelope ? Restructure, create new strategy. Survive ! Final envelope’s turn
comes after a gap which reads: Create
three envelopes !

Corporate world is full of pseudo
professionals who survive and at times thrive with their mastery of jargon,
leaning on others, taking away credit from own team, agreeing to their
immediate managers, sucking up to those who matter and finally using vendors to
give them dope that makes them look good. The malaise is a lot more in the technology
world that invents acronyms, jargon, and new fads with regularity confusing
even technophiles; tech vendors are happy to provide spinal support in return
for business.

The masqueraders
can be seen at most conferences and seminars nodding intelligently at speakers
and asking questions; they flock together and stay away from the intellectuals.
They are not to be confused with the incompetent
who shy away from any public appearance who only focus on internal politics and
their survival depends on the first or second envelopes at different times with
different folks within the company; their survival is also reliant on finding a
godfather or some capable team members.

Pareto’s principle applies here
too but inversely; the majority are able to get away with their pretenses and a
small segment gets caught often shunted out by bell curve distribution. At
senior levels the collateral damage is high to the enterprise, setback in
business or industry at times difficult to overcome; weeding out such
ineffectives takes time and effort which most companies are reluctant to
invest. It also reflects badly on their ability to hire talented good people or
separate cheese from chalk !

Take the case of this large
enterprise which hired – let’s call her Suzy – to a senior position; she had
come through the interviews well with help from an insider who coached her on
what to say. Nothing wrong with that, everyone seeks whatever help they can to
ace an interview for a position that they want badly enough. Such was the
situation for Suzy too as she had been force exited from her past company post
restructuring, a fact that remains undisclosed. She chatted her way through to
securing the position.

Her inherited team compared her
behavior, expertise, skills, knowledge, connects in the industry, understanding
of the industry, personal traits, leadership qualities, desire to connect with
them, essentially sizing her up as a leader who will influence their future.
The comparison by the team with the earlier person was obvious and natural, the
results however not in her favor; she recognized the fact and created an
impregnable veil shutting off any discussion. The team knew the disadvantageous
position thus prevailing.

The team toiled harder only to be
cut off from credits scored by their work, giving them no visibility nor
allowing any of them to interact with decision makers lest they expose the
insecurities of their leader. Any attempts to bypass the straightjacketed
process were met with reprimands and promise of future retributions. The iron
lady brushed aside her rusty demeanor allowing those who made up her coterie to
gain favors at the expense of the others with resultant attrition in the
inherited team as collateral damage.

It was a matter of time that Suzy will
reach the third envelope stage, except that she had been able to demonstrate
progress for now with the first (envelope) being pulled out like a trump card
whenever something was not as expected. It was a matter of time that management
took cognizance of the fact that the past was distant and she had had enough time
to change it. It was a matter of time that the Board recognized there has been
no significant initiatives from her stable despite the rising costs and
industry moving at a faster clip.

Different enterprises wake up to
eventualities at different stages of their progression; when growth and
profitability is above target, no one really cares for the deadwood, they are
too busy celebrating. Search for termites starts when everything is not hunky
dory or when a new leader takes over reins and has no history, baggage or axe
to grind. Eventually the overdue surgery takes place cleansing the system to
restart; then there are companies who are reluctant to take tough decisions,
they embrace mediocrity for long.